Prahran and Werribee By-Elections Live

Prahran (Grn vs Lib 12.0%)
Vacancy for resignation of Sam Hibbins (Grn/IND)

Liberal gain from Green/IND (called Sunday 4:20 pm)

Werribee (ALP vs Lib 10.9%)
Vacancy for resignation of Tim Pallas (ALP)
Labor retain (called Thursday 3:30 pm)

----

Distributions: Both preference distributions have been posted and I don't know if there is any scope for further changes so for now it looks like the Liberals have won the primary vote count in Prahran by one vote.  In Prahran, the lead changed a few times through the distribution, and going into the Lupton exclusion the Greens were still ahead. However, that exclusion flowed 63.7% to Liberal.  I have heard from scrutineers that the flow from 1 Lupton votes was 68-32.  

In Werribee, the Liberals gained slightly from the final (Paul Hopper) transfer; here I have heard that the split off the 1 Hopper votes was 60-40 to them but the preferences that had pooled with Hopper from other sources favoured Labor.  What is notable here is that far from the minor candidates preferences pooling with Hopper, he actually went backwards compared to both majors, and got only 27.8% of the preferences at the 3CP stage.  This means that while there was a very large vote for non-majors in Werribee, a lot of those voters were not consistently opposed to the major parties; they just liked someone else more.  The term "double haters" has been thrown around in reference to this result but the distribution doesn't suggest that's what the voters are.  

Friday 6:20 ALP lead in Werribee out to 639, there will be slight changes but I expect it to finish well within 100 of that.  

Friday: Labor has very reasonably claimed victory in Werribee but the result is not official until after the adding of final votes and the distribution of preferences, which I'd expect to happen sometime next week.  In Prahran, it's interesting to note the Liberal primary vote lead over the Greens has come down to seven votes; although the Liberals will win the seat thanks to their superior preference flow, it is still possible they will do so from second on primaries (that would be embarrassing for right-wingers who oppose preferential voting).  

Tony Lupton has been claiming credit for the result in The Australian and suggesting Labor should put the Greens last everywhere.  However not only did his vote not look very Labory in booth terms, but his how to vote card which was orange and said "It's Time For An Independent" was hardly pitched at Labor voters beyond the endorsement from Steve Bracks.  

Thursday 3:30: Recheck primaries have come through without any major changes to Labor's position; this plus the increased lead after postals counted so far makes it clear Labor has retained the seat.   (Update: I understand there are now only provisionals and the last postals to come.)

Thursday 3pm: A report that Labor has done well on primary votes on the late postals and are poised to pull further ahead on 2PP.  (Update: report from Labor that the lead is now 591.)

Thursday midday: Counting of about 2000 Werribee postals has been brought forward to today.  This plus rechecking of booths may put the seat beyond doubt.  

Tuesday: Rechecking in Prahran has not resulted in any significant changes.  Still waiting for rechecked primaries in Werribee.  

Sunday: Where The Lupton Vote Really Came From!

There has been some damage-control spinning from the Greens of a result that is simply very bad.  Among this has been a tweet by leader Ellen Sandell claiming that "Obviously it’s not the result we would have liked but with the unofficial Labor candidate sending their preferences to the Liberals, those Labor preferences have handed the seat to the Liberals this time."  Firstly, Lupton was not a typical unofficial "independent Labor" type candidate but one who'd got involved in some culture war issues and criticised the party.  Secondly, candidates don't send preferences anywhere (it's the lower house) and I'd be surprised if the follow rate for the Lupton card was that high anyway.  Thirdly the evidence is that where Lupton got his votes from tended not to be the ALP support base.  In booth terms, while his vote was pretty flat everywhere, he did worst in the good Labor booths from 2022 and better in the good Liberal booths from 2022 - even though the former had more votes up for grabs care of Labor not running!  Neither result is statistically significant but they do very strongly contradict the idea that the Lupton vote was a large chunk of the former Labor vote - it looks more like an independent conservative sort of thing:

Prahran and Werribee By-Elections

In a nice appertiser for the federal election year, Victoria has a couple of unusually interesting state by-elections coming up on February 8, which I intend to cover on the night.  One is especially interesting because it's a more or less stock-standard test for the theory that the a government is in trouble, the other because of its uniqueness.  This is a preview post for these by-elections where I look at some factors that might affect the results; I will add notes on polling if I see any.  

Prahran (Green vs Lib 12.0%, 3CP Green vs ALP 5.8%)
ALP not contesting
Vacancy for: resignation of Sam Hibbins (Grn/IND) following personal scandal

Prahran is a unique seat to begin with, and this by-election is even more of an oddity because of the decision of the Allan Labor government to not turn the rock over.  Labor cited the fact that they had not won the seat since 2006 and didn't need it as pretexts for not having a go.  Winning would have been challenging because the standard anti-government by-election factor would have made it hard for them to get over the Greens even with the loss of Hibbins' personal vote.  On the other hand with the government currently not polling well there could have been fear of a really bad result (such as being jumped by some indie and finishing fourth).  If Labor could have won the by-election they may well have been in a better position to hold off the Greens at the next general election, but unlikely to happen and not to be.

Victoria 2018: Final Lower House Results, Poll Performance and 2PP Pendulum

LABOR 55 SEATS COALITION 27 GREEN 3 IND 3
There is no single method of calculating 2PP for this election.  The following are examples of possible figures:

57.57% to Labor (Uniform swing applied to Richmond - probably fairest method)
57.84% to Labor (Richmond treated as 100% to Labor)
57.30% to Labor (Richmond excluded)

With two-party results for all Lower House seats now available it's time to wrap up my Victorian election coverage for 2018, on a high because at least that's the one house where I can talk about the results without constantly losing my temper at the system.  The article again includes a 2PP pendulum.  While this will be of less use for the future than the 2014 one was, given that there is a major redistribution coming, I think it is still useful for looking at the results, and especially at whether the Coalition was lucky not to lose even more seats than it did.

2018 Victorian Postcount: Other Indie Challenges (Pascoe Vale, South-West Coast etc)

On this page - Pascoe Vale, South-West Coast, Geelong, Ovens Valley, Werribee, Mildura

Link to state tally and main postcount thread

Link to upper house coverage

I've already posted threads on the interesting post-counts in Morwell, Benambra and Melton.  There are more seats I could post threads of their own on but I shouldn't put too many on the front page!  This seat covers all remaining seats I am aware of where there are interesting issues involving independent candidates creating problems for either major party.  Often in election leadups this is spoken about as a factor but then most of the indie challenges fizzle.  In this case the Coalition's performance has been so bad that it has opened many doors to independents to either beat the Coalition on Labor preferences or beat Labor on Coalition preferences.  Suzanna Sheed has easily retained, Ali Cupper appears to have won Mildura (see below),  Russell Northe is in a fairly good looking position in Morwell, and there are a bunch of others who either can't be written off, or who can be written off but have come close.  Here we go then.  All seats will be updated from time to time unless I have already called them.